AP/IB/Honors Physics Activity Browse

Search for activities specifically designed for introductory college level physics courses. Refine this search by either clicking on the terms in boxes to the right or typing a term into the search box below. Activities include a description, background information, and necessary student documents.

Back-of-the-Envelope Calculations: Weight of Goldpart of Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection Question Let's suppose that you have a shoe box full of water (the box is waterproof, of course). The shoe box weighs about 9 kg (19.8 pounds). Suppose you emptied the box and filled it completely with rock ...

Waves Through Earth: Interactive Online Mac and PCpart of Starting Point-Teaching Entry Level Geoscience:Mathematical and Statistical Models:Mathematical and Statistical Models Examples Students vary the seismic P and S wave velocity through each of four concentric regions of Earth and match "data" for travel times vs. angular distance around Earth's surface from the source to ...

Unit 4: The Water Wars of Cochabamba, Boliviapart of Environmental Justice and Freshwater Resources - Spanish In this unit, students explore water privatization and freshwater access issues within the geophysical and cultural context of Cochabamba, Bolivia. Students identify topographical features that create rain shadows ...

Unit 1: Data Set Analysispart of Mapping the Environment with Sensory Perception In this unit, students will be introduced to different data types used in the geosciences and other disciplines to understand environmental problems. The instructor will discuss the difference between qualitative ...

Unit 3: Rivers and Water Diversionpart of Environmental Justice and Freshwater Resources - Spanish In this unit students will explore surface water and its relationship to the water cycle via watersheds and drainage divides. These topics will inform their analysis of the social and environmental impacts of the ...

Geologic Time Calculationspart of Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection Radiometric age determination using parent/daughter composition and a radiometric decay curve.

Wave Interferencepart of Cutting Edge:Topics:Deep Earth:Activities This activity engages students in the exploration of interference between sinusoidal wave forms. They use an interactive applet to manipulate the phase, wavelength, amplitude, and phase velocity of two waveforms ...

Visualizing Sun Position of the Seasonspart of Cutting Edge:Enhance Your Teaching:Visualization:Examples The goal of the exercise is to help students visualize and better understand how the sun changes apparent position over the course of the seasons.

The Floating Lithosphere - Isostasypart of Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection Students are asked to numerically and then analytically determine the relations governing the depth of compensation.

The Floating Lithosphere - Eureka!part of Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection In this module, students examine Archimede's Principle in general and as it applies to Isostacy.

Mass Balance Modelpart of Starting Point-Teaching Entry Level Geoscience:Mathematical and Statistical Models:Mathematical and Statistical Models Examples Students are introduced to the concept of mass balance, flow rates, and equilibrium using an online interactive water bucket model. -

Sonar Demonstration -- Human Sound Wavepart of Cutting Edge:Courses:Oceanography:Activities Sonar technology allowed scientists to produce high-resolution maps of the sea floor for the first time. This sonar demonstration uses a Human Sound Wave to image the "sea floor" in a lecture hall. In ...

Sun Spot Analysispart of Starting Point-Teaching Entry Level Geoscience:Teaching with Data:Examples Introductory students use Excel to graph monthly mean Greenwich sunspot numbers from 1749 to 2004 and perform a spectral analysis of the data using the free software program "Spectra". -

The Floating Lithosphere - Isostasypart of Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection Students are asked to numerically and then analytically determine the relations governing the depth of compensation.

The Transformer: Simulation Lecture Demopart of comPADRE Pedagogic Library:Interactive Lectures:Examples The activity presents an interactive lecture demonstration of the operation of a transformer using a simulation. -

Learning to Think about Gravity: Newtons's Theorypart of comPADRE Pedagogic Library:Interactive Lectures:Examples The purpose of this exercise is to learn how to think about gravity, learn about scientific methodology, and transition from the Aristotelian to the Newtonian understanding of gravity. -